RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Kingdom of God
of the kingdom as, on the one hand, an obedient people ruled by God, and, on the other, as the totality of gifts which God's rule vouchsafes to its members, approach each other much more closely than in the Jewish scheme. The exercise of the " graces," by which the kingdom of God or Christ is extended, becomes an ethical task for the Christian however much before and after the efforts of his will he may be filled with the consciousness of his dependence on the working of divine grace (Rom. xii. 6-8; I Cor. xii. 14 sqq.); so that Paul calls his missionary associates " fellow workers unto the kingdom of God " (Col. iv. 11).
The Apocalypse, in like manner, recognizes not only a future kingdom of God (xix.-xxi.), but also one that is active in this present world. The believers are already rulers (i. 6, v. 10), though the special blessings of the divine kingdom are promises and there is no organic connection between obedience and promise. On the other hand, the Gospel and Epistles of John set forth the same concept as that of Paul, except for the individualism and spiritualism of Hellenistic terminology, as exemplified in the substitution of eternal life for the kingdom (except in John iii. 3, 5, xviii. 36 sqq.). While, however, Paul makes the arrival of the kingdom in this world dependent upon the elevation of Jesus to the right hand of God, for John the iingdom comes immediately through the knowledge of God (xvii. 3, xviii. 37, xiv. 9).
In distinction from Paul and John, the preachng of Jesus follows the Jewish scheme, in that he arges the will of man to the acquisition of moral ustice by pointing to the future kingdom, since jod will reward such an attitude alone with a share n his kingdom (Matt. v. 1-12, vi. 2, 33, vii. 21, cviii. 3, 8 sqq., xix. 21, 27-29, xxv. 34; Luke xii. J5-48). By the kingdom Jesus understood the sstablishment of the rule of God in the immediate uture, with a general resurrection and judgment >y a miracle of God, accompanied with a renovation )f the world denoting for the just the enjoyment )f an abundance of blessings, such as participation n the divine governance (Matt. xix. 28), a share in he Messianic meal with the patriarchs (Matt. viii. .1, xxvi. 29), and the sight of God, whose children hey become, being equal to the angels (Matt. v. i, 8, 9; Luke xx. 36)^ -From Jewish hopes he drew the j^Mitical and national factor and 3. The the portrayal of physical pleasures, but Teaching he did not use the term " kingdom of of Jesus. God " to signify the obedient subjects of God, or an organized community of uch subjects. Whether the view of Paul and John oncerning the projection of the future kingdom >f God into this world was foreign to the spirit of esus depends on the question whether the justice lemanded by him as a condition for a share in iod's kingdom was of the same high quality as the ;ifts of the kingdom; whether he considered those lifts as an organic completion of justice or as a regard which stood only in a mechanical relation to 'A and whether his preaching was merely mandaory, or possessed a creating and saving power, so hat voluntary obedience to it could at once be 2lt to be the reception of miraculous, morally sa-
ving, and beatifying powers of God. As to the first point, we know that Jesus abolished the heteronomy of the legalistic attitude, and consequently the basis of a mechanical concept of a future reward, by laying all stress upon the disposition of the heart (Mark vii. 15; Matt. vii. 16-17), by substituting for the legalistic relation the relation of children to a father (Mark x. 14 sqq.), by denying any legal claims to reward (Matt. xx. 1 sqq.; Luke xvii. 7- 10), by making God himself the model (Matt. v. 48), and by promising the kingdom of God to those who long for righteousness (Matt. v. 6)^- At the same time, Jesus subordinated temporal rewards to the spiritual blessings of the kingdom, so that with him there is an organic relation between the moral condition in this world and the blessings of the world to come. Jesus himself knew that sonship with God was a blessed thing (Matt. xi. 27), and he admonished others to feel themselves to be the children of God (Matt. x. 29-32; Luke x. 19). He promised rest to all who should take his yoke upon them (Matt. xi. 28-30), and he urged his hearers to trust boldly in God with the full assurance that their prayers were heard (Mark xi. 22 sqq.; Matt. vii. 7), and to live in purity of heart and in love even of their enemies. It is thus clear that, despite divergencies in terminology and concept, the teachings of John and Paul on the kingdom of God were in harmony with the preaching of Jesus. It is plain from Matt. xii. 28 and Luke x. 18-20 that Jesus held that the kingdom of God had already come in its religious, though not in its ethical, concept; and in like manner the comparison of John the Baptist to the least in the kingdom of heaven (Matt. xi. 11; cf. Luke xvi. 16) implies that with him the time of prophecy had ended and that of fulfilment begun. Such parables as those of the grain of mustard seed, the leaven, and the tares also teach that the kingdom had already begun, and foreshadow the progress of revelation and of the divine power entered into the world; while the victories over the powers of evil and the divine success of his preaching of the kingdom also confirmed his belief.
In later primitive Christianity the kingdom of God was an exclusively eschatological concept, so that, according to Hegesippus, kinsfolk of Jesus declared to Domitian that " the kingdom of Christ is not cosmic or earthly, but heavenly and angelic at the consummation of the age " (cf. also I Clem, xlii. 3; Hermas, Similitudes, x. 12, 8). The Church is distinguished from the kingdom of 4. The God; she will be gathered from the Kingdom four corners of the earth into the king- Previous dom which God has prepared for her to Augus- (Didache, ix. 4, x. 5). For Tertullian, tine. Cyprian, Justin, and Irenaeus the characteristic feature of the coming of the kingdom is the rule of God, by which they understood the discontinuance of their state of servitude and oppression, and the enjoyment of a wonderfully increased fertility of the earth. On the other hand, Lactantius (Divinae institutiones, VII., xxiv. 4) held that the righteous would reign with God and Christ on earth, the wicked being not entirely destroyed, but doomed to perpetual bondage
Kingdom of God